Will Democrats pay a price for Bergdahl deal?

By Julian Zelizer, CNN Contributor

Updated 7:55 AM ET, Mon June 9, 2014

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As long as there has been war, there have been prisoners. And as long as there have been people held by the so-called enemy, there have been some who went free -- whether they escaped, were exchanged or were released. Nearly five years after his capture in Afghanistan, Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was released last year in exchange for five detainees from the U.S. military detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He has been charged with desertion and misbehavior before the enemy, officials announced Wednesday, March 25.

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Andrew Jackson was all of 13 years old when he joined the Patriots in the Revolutionary War. By 1781, he was in British custody -- during which he was slashed by an upset British officer and contracted smallpox, a disease that claimed the life of his brother and fellow captive, Robert. Their mother arranged for their release as part of a prisoner exchange. He would go on to become "Old Hickory," establishing himself as a soldier, a politician and the tough, rugged representation of the American frontier. Jackson's place in U.S. history was cemented in 1828, with his election as the nation's seventh president.

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While people nowadays may not know Meriwether Lewis Clark Sr., his name is familiar. He's the son of William Clark and was named after Meriwether Lewis, the two men who led the groundbreaking Lewis and Clark expedition to the Pacific Northwest. A U.S. Military Academy grad and architect whose works helped shape St. Louis, Missouri, Meriwether Lewis Clark Sr. was a high-ranking figure in the Confederate military during the Civil War until his capture in 1865. With the end of the war, Clark ended up in Louisville, Kentucky, and resumed his work as an engineer until his death in 1881.

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Winston Churchill was a journalist, not a soldier. Nonetheless, he found himself captured in South Africa in 1899, after Boer soldiers ambushed an armored train. But Churchill, pictured at right with other prisoners, didn't stay in Pretoria for long. Less than a month after his capture, he hurdled a prison wall and walked free. The episode helped catapult Churchill's standing in his native Britain. But he didn't stop there. Churchill went on to become one of his country's most recognizable figures over the subsequent decades, including as its prime minister in the thick of World War II.

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When Merian Cooper's plane crashed during World War I, an American general declared Cooper dead, according to the Jacksonville, Florida, Historical Society. In fact, he had been captured by the Germans. Cooper remained in Europe fighting Bolsheviks after his release, then embarked on expeditions to places like modern-day Ethiopia, Iran and Thailand. Upon returning home, Cooper made a name for himself as a movie studio executive and the creator of the iconic King Kong. He kept a foothold in public life right to the end, from joining U.S. forces during World War II to -- one decade later -- backing Sen. Joseph McCarthy in his fight to rid Hollywood and the country of communists.

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Charles de Gaulle was a captain in the French army in 1916 when, during the Battle of Verdun, he was shot then taken prisoner by German forces. His release at World War I's conclusion didn't end his service to his country or its military, including a leading role in the French resistance to the Nazis during World War II. De Gaulle became president of his newly liberated nation following the Nazis' fall, though he didn't stay around for long -- he resigned his post in January 1946. Still, de Gaulle remained active in public and political life. In 1959, the ardent nationalist once again became president, a position he held for a decade.

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Jean-Paul Sartre was already a teacher, writer and philosopher when he was drafted in 1939 to join French forces fighting in World War II. He was captured in 1940, spending about a year as a prisoner. Sartre didn't rest after his release. He was active in the French resistance and as a writer, including the 1943 publications of "L'Etre et le Neant" ("Being and Nothingness") and the play "Les Mouches" ("The Flies"). He continued to gain international fame and recognition after the war ended, including earning the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature for his autobiography, "Les Mots" ("The Words").

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Before Kurt Vonnegut wrote books that became must-reads in American classrooms, he was a soldier. But his time in combat came to an abrupt halt in 1944's Battle of the Bulge, when Nazi forces captured him. Vonnegut was a prisoner in Dresden during the Allies' massive, deadly firebombing of that German city, an episode he later recounted in "Slaughterhouse-Five." That book was one of several --- along with "Cat's Cradle" and "God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater" --- that came to define his legacy. In the 1980s, Vonnegut experienced a resurgence, thanks to books such as "Deadeye Dick" and "Bluebeard," and he became an outspoken peace and anti-nuclear activist.

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Francis Gary Powers wasn't captured at war -- at least not an official one. The Soviet Union shot down the U-2 spy plane he was piloting on May 1, 1960, after which Powers spent 21 months in a Moscow prison. He ended up back in the United States in 1962, as part of an exchange of spies with the Soviets. Powers testified before Congress and chronicled what happened to him in a book. He also embarked on a new, less covert life, including years working at Lockheed Martin and as a helicopter pilot broadcasting traffic updates in Los Angeles. He died in a helicopter crash in 1977.

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In early 1973, nearly 600 prisoners of war who'd been captured in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia returned home to the United States. Many of them later made their mark on the world, but none is more widely recognizable than John McCain. The Viet Cong shot down his Navy fighter jet in 1967, then shuttled him around prison camps and tortured him. McCain remained in the Navy after his release until 1981. The next year, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Arizona; four years later, he became a U.S. senator, a job he still has today. He won the Republican nomination for president in 2008.

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Jessica Lynch was a 19-year-old private first class when her supply convoy took a wrong turn in Iraq and was ambushed on March 23, 2003. U.S. special forces rescued her from an Iraqi hospital in Nasiriyah eight days later -- all part of an ordeal that turned her, unexpectedly, into an overnight heroine and one of the most recognizable faces of the Iraq War. She is seen here leaving a U.S. Air Force base in Germany on her way back to the United States. Since returning home, Lynch has largely stayed out of the media spotlight. She is raising her daughter, earned a college degree in elementary education and lives near her hometown of Palestine, West Virginia.

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Story highlights

Julian Zelizer: Criticism of Obama foreign policy has been on the increase

Hillary Clinton's book mentions her disagreement with Obama on Syrian rebels

He says debate over prisoner swap for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl adds to the controversy

Zelizer says foreign policy can have effect on midterms, usually dominated by economic issues

Critics of President Barack Obama's foreign policy are getting louder by the day, and that poses risks for Democrats this fall and even in 2016.

According to previews of Hillary Clinton's memoirs, "Hard Choices," the former secretary of state distances herself from Obama on certain decisions, such as on the question of whether to arm Syrian rebels. She wanted to be more aggressive; he did not.

Democrats have grown more nervous about foreign policy as Obama has been working hard to respond to critics who say hasn't taken a tough-enough line. The controversy over the deal to secure the release of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl in exchange for five Taliban prisoners has flared into an extraordinarily heated debate. Obama has watched as his approval rating for handling international affairs has fallen to 41%.

Last month, Obama had to stand by as Republicans launched another round of congressional investigations into the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya. Russia's aggressive moves into the Ukraine stirred talk of a new Cold War and concern that the President didn't really have a viable response to this kind of aggression.

More recently, the controversies shifted to the President's broader vision or lack thereof. Republicans found a lot to dislike in his address at West Point, where Obama indicated that the nation should step back from using military power as freely as it has done in the past.

Soon after came the news about the release of Bergdahl, in exchange for the release of five notorious Taliban prisoners. Republicans were quick to accuse the President of negotiating with terrorists. They have also accused him of violating the law by failing to inform Congress of the impending deal.

Even though Democrats point to a number of huge accomplishments during the Obama presidency -- the killing of Osama bin Laden, the drawdown of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and diplomatic initiatives to bring nuclear disarmament in Iran without bloodshed -- the critics have upped their volume.

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All of the recent stories add up to the potential for foreign policy to emerge as a potent issue in the midterm campaigns this fall. Congressional Democrats could suffer as a result of the unhappiness with the administration's policies. Even though midterm elections generally focus on bread and butter questions about the health of the economy, as well as local concerns, there are times when foreign policy can hurt the party of the president.

In 1966, for instance, Republicans campaigned against Lyndon Johnson's policies in Vietnam. GOP officials such as former Vice President Richard Nixon said that Johnson was not unleashing enough force against the North Vietnamese Communists and leaving U.S. troops in a quagmire. In 1978, Republicans railed against President Jimmy Carter for his alleged weakness in foreign policy, claiming that he gave away too much in the Panama Canal Treaties and that he was pursuing a dangerous policy of détente with the Soviet Union.

In 1982, Democrats, who were generally focused on the recession, also spoke in favor of a nuclear freeze and warned that President Ronald Reagan's embrace of the military was bringing the nation close to war. More recently, Republicans blasted Democrats in 2002 for being weak on defense after having not supported the administration's homeland security bill. And in 2006, Democratic candidates returned the favor by criticizing the president's war in Iraq as a reckless, unnecessary and extremely costly operation that had actually undermined the war on terrorism.

While foreign policy carried different levels of weight in these midterms, in some of these contests, such as 1966 and 2006, the administration's actions overseas dismayed voters.

Will foreign policy play a factor in the 2014 midterms? It is unlikely that it will be a major issue but there are ways it could have an indirect effect on the ballot box and cause trouble for Democrats when Americans turn out to vote.

At the most immediate level, the foreign policy controversy has already distracted the news media from other kinds of stories upon which congressional Democrats were hoping to focus. The foreign policy controversy intensified just as there was evidence that the economy was picking up steam and that the Obama's health care program was gaining strength. Both signs of accomplishment were put on the back burner, overshadowed by the Bergdahl debate.

The stories also feed the perception of some voters who feel that Democrats have not done a good job managing government. This is a White House that once prided itself on competence. Obama, a well-educated politician who surrounded himself with bright staff, vowed to avoid the kind of mismanagement that had been on display with Hurricane Katrina during President George W. Bush's term. But that reputation has slowly been undercut, especially after the botched health care website rollout and the VA scandal.

Some of the coverage of the foreign policy, including recent reports on how the deal with the Taliban was handled, have played into these kinds of criticism. The New York Times published a lengthy piece about the diminishing returns that Obama was able to obtain over the past several years in exchange for the release of the Taliban 5 and evidence of how his team had mishandled the process.

The Berghdal deal is also becoming a way to question the veracity of Democratic promises.

Members of Congress, in both parties, have alleged that Obama violated the law by ignoring a federal statute that says the president must inform Congress one month before such a deal is completed. They have said he is acting exactly like Bush, whom he had accused of discounting legislative intent through sweeping notions of executive power.

The foreign policy debate puts into focus the argument that Obama, as well as the party he leads, lacks a bold vision. This is something that has even frustrated many Democrats who feel that the President is too much of pragmatist and not enough of a visionary. The speech at West Point fell flat for some Americans because it almost seemed focus on excusing what he couldn't do rather outlining what he wants to do.

During his visit to the Philippines, the President explained his outlook on foreign policy by saying, "You hit singles, you hit doubles; every once in a while you may be able to hit a home run."

The debate over foreign policy helps Republicans by riling up the party's base at an opportune time, five months before the election, while at the same time dispiriting the Democrats. Yes, voters are thinking primarily about how they're faring in today's economy, but on the margins, their perception of their local candidate's views on foreign policy could be a factor in November.